


Shinigami Tensei

by Furudehan



Category: HoloEN, Hololive, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Music, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Friendship, Gen, Musicians, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28630710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furudehan/pseuds/Furudehan
Summary: You died. Get ready to meet your reaper.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Shinigami Tensei

**Author's Note:**

> (Any and all shitty rap lyrics were written by me and don't represent the quality of Calliope Mori's works or herself.) :^)  
> 

_Because I could not stop for Death –_

_He kindly stopped for me –_

_The Carriage held but just Ourselves –_

_And Immortality._

**—** Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death.”

There’s something currently impossible going on right before your eyes—A situation your mind finds itself barely able to process. You are looking down at your own body. A body that no longer has any life remaining in it. You cannot remember how it happened but it’s clear to you that you are no longer among the living.

You can’t tell how long you’ve been standing over your body as you no longer have any semblance of time. There are also no discernable details of the room you’re in. The walls are an arid, black abyss and appear, impossibly, to be melting. You no longer feel any of your once-human senses. But despite all this, you adamantly refuse to move from your position. You foolishly cling to the notion that this is all just a dream that you’ll be waking up from at any moment.

Time assuredly passes, yet you’re unable to gauge it in any standard capacity. You begin to wonder where it is you could possibly go from here. Your options at the moment seem very limited. You try to rack your, now, non-existent brain for answers when you suddenly sense a presence. You think this should be impossible as you no longer have any sort of mind to sense things, but it seems the rules just work differently here.

It’s right in front of you now. You couldn’t even see it approach—Almost as if it had been standing next to you this entire time. A large, impossibly-dark shadow looks down at you. You cannot fully comprehend what it is you’re looking at, yet you know it somehow senses you. You can’t feel any malice from it, but you wonder if you’re safer off just keeping quiet and hoping that it goes away.

It does not.

After what once again seems like a large amount of time, you decide to give up the staring contest and finally attempt to communicate. “Hello?” you say aloud, wondering if the entity understands.

In that instant, the shadow vanishes in a puff of smoke. You wonder if perhaps you scared it off.

You’re dead wrong.

A booming, boisterous voice of a woman rings out, “YOOOOOOOOOOOO! IT’S YA BOY, MC CALLIO-P! IT LOOKS LIKE WE’VE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHA WANDERING HOMEBOY!”

You’re vaguely able to discern the form of a person behind the billowing smoke currently filling the strange room. You begin to wonder if maybe your cause of death was drug-related.

A gorgeous, pink-haired woman wearing a dark, flowing gown steps forward. Shining, gold inlays adorned the waist and hem of her dress. In contrast, sharp spikes lined the large collar of a cape attached to her neck—The end of which was in tatters. The strange curvature of the spikes leads you to believe that they were perhaps the teeth of some unknown creature, possibly pulled out of a slain, otherworldly beast and now worn as a trophy.

There was also a long, ghostly-white veil clipped to a sinister, black crown atop her head. It gave her the appearance of a saint.

Your instincts begin to warn you to make a run for it—but not before your gaze sets upon the generously ample bosom peeking out from her traditional, black dress. Maybe you should see how this goes.

“Hell—” she begins to stammer before going into a loud fit of coughing. “Ack! Sorry! Smoke-kun here likes to betray me sometimes,” she says to you in a softer tone than before.

Did she just say—

“That’s the last fucking time I buy zombie powder from the inconvenience store,” you hear her mutter to herself, her voice now an octave lower.

You wave the smoke from your face, “Zombie p—”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Just try not to breathe any of that in. Nasty, nasty stuff. You really don’t wanna know what it’s made of.” She answers before you can finish.

“Who are you?” you ask confusedly.

“Yo, what? Did you not just hear my sick entrance?” she asks you, similarly confused. “It’s Calliope. CA-LLIO-PE. But if that’s too hard you can also call me Mori. I hope you’ll remember me!” She winks at you.

You’re not sure why but a sense of ease spreads through you. Like you’re chatting with an old friend. You nod.

She smiles at you. “Now then,” she snaps her fingers and in a blaze of fire, an ancient looking tome appears in her hand. She flips it open to a random page, “Let’s see… Damn, how do I pronounce this?” She scratches her head. “I always get these names wrong.” She turns to you and points to a name in her book. “This _is_ you, right?”

You take a peek at where her finger’s pointing: It’s in an unrecognizable script, but somehow, you’re able to read your name clear as day. It’s you, alright. You give her a rigid nod.

“Great!” She shuts the tome and instantly it disappears from her hand; In its place is a strange, gleaming artifact. You notice that it has a lot of sharp points surrounding it. With a flick of her wrist, the strange artifact she’s grasping snaps swiftly outward.

You now realize that it’s actually a very large scythe. The snath looks very worn and gnarled, having seen quite a bit of use. Attached to the top are jagged, black blades that encircle a large, golden ring. A broad, menacing-looking blade then curves outward from there. The metal looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s in that moment that you realize who this woman is supposed to be.

Before you know it, she’s holding the scythe high above her head, ready to take a barreling downward swing. Her figure, now in a threatening pose that would frighten even the stoutest of men accompanied by a searing look in her eyes that somehow betray a hint of compassion.

You squint your own eyes reflexively. You know what’s coming, but you’re still not ready for it. You yell in protest, “No!”

She remains still, scythe still above her head. She’s frozen for a moment before finally letting out a sigh. “What do you mean ‘no?’”

“I’m not ready to die. I can’t be dead,” you argue. You know it’s futile but you try anyway.

She lowers her scythe and juts one end into the ground. “Fine,” she hisses. “Technically I can’t reap you against your will. But your only other option here is wandering the Earth invisibly until you decide you’re ready.”

“Am I really dead?” you ask, worriedly. “It feels like I’ve barely lived.”

She grins and claps her hands together. When they part, a microphone forms in the air between her hands. A secondary voice of unknown origin begins beatboxing. She clears her throat:

What can I say, kid? You’re dead, I’m afraid. Don’t be misled. Your life’s quota’s all been paid. And I’m the reaper who has come to collect

the debt

of this soul that’s been neglect-ed, rejected, disrespected-

“What are you talking about?” you protested.

She looks at you with a cocked eyebrow and asks, “Ya still don’t get it?”

Then let me spin you a li’l narrative

Of the way you lived,

Weave you a tale

Of a mortal shell, whose frail state of mind

Led to a steady decline

“Enough!” you yell. You get it now. It’s all coming back to you. You lived a sedentary lifestyle, forever holed up in your room. You made a comfortable living that way. Or you thought you did. Until that life eventually caught up with you. Until that one day where you were buried under a pile of your own filth. Your last thoughts being of gasping for air. You were the absolute dregs of society.

“Yo, man. I was just getting to the hook,” she says while throwing some hand signs in the air while sporting a dejected look on her face. “Well, you get the point.”

You try to choke down the sobs that are beginning to well up in your throat. “Is there nothing I can do to change my fate?” you ask her.

She sighs, looking at you and trying to think of what to say. She checks the clock on her phone. “No,” she says. “But listen. I’m running short on time, so why not come with me to my place and you can give this decision a little more thought?”

You scratch your head in wonder. _Does Death actually have a place to call home?_ You nod at her, ultimately deciding it’s the best option for now.

“Alriiiight,” she yells while pulling her scythe out of the ground. “Let’s blow this existential trash heap.” She twirls her scythe rapidly with one hand, weird energies flowing forth to rip a hole in reality. The weapon disappears and in its place is a nebulous looking portal with no clear ending to it. “After you,” she grins, giving you a slight bow.

Without hesitation, you step through the ethereal portal. All at once, your very being crumbles beneath you. You no longer feel the world around you. Your field of view goes completely white and everything simply disappears from existence.

Eventually, a strange, dimensional plane begins to form in and around the peripherals of your vision—followed by another and another. Shadows of shapes of other universes rushing past you, through you. You catch glimpses of these alien worlds passing by: A vast, underwater kingdom full of horrifying creatures. Another: A lone Shinto temple that’s home to a cheerful, pink-haired guardian who is seen currently sweeping the grounds. Another: A small hut in the middle of a huge forest, where a young witch and her pet squirrel are seen cooking up mystical potions for some dastardly reason known only to her demented mind. Another: Various office buildings battered by rain are standing tall amongst the slick backdrop of some unfamiliar, contemporary metropolis. The air smells of wet dust. The half-obscured signs poking up towards the heavens alluded to the various companies in the area. Professional looking skyscrapers with a smiling CEO plastered across the façade of the building, large construction companies in the middle of huge bidding wars and a very famous detective agency in the midst of it all. Gloomy towers that poked up from the roots of the city. It all fades as quickly as it began as yet another cosmos materializes before you: A medieval world protected by a band of warriors that sail a huge ocean filled with enormous pirate ships.

Countless more worlds shoot past you until the sights before you finally begin to slow down. Your consciousness gradually starts to remanifest itself.

You are able to feel whole again.

You find yourself in a small, cramped living space. There’s a tiny bed covered in blotchy red stains, and spread over it are pink sheets that might have been a lovely shade of purple, once, some hundreds of years ago. Next to that is a small fridge filled with various bottles of wine. On the wall was an extravagant board filled with dozens of ancient-looking weapons—Each more dangerous than the last. This, for some reason, actually took up the majority of the room.

A loud motorcycle can be heard revving up in the distance.

In the other corner of the room, a woman garbed in a familiar, black dress is shooting darts at a crude drawing of what appeared to be a chicken taped to the wall.

“Ah, ya made it!” she says. She stops and turns to you, unceremoniously dropping the remaining darts on a crowded table full of empty bottles and what appears to be a kazoo. 

She notices your look of concern as you continue staring at the various knick-knacks she has lying around. She screams. “Wait! Wait! You weren’t supposed to see those!” she says in a flustered tone as she scrambles to clean the small, single desk in the middle of the room.

Throwing the bag of trash out her window, she tilts her head back and looks at you with a stern look on her face. “Okay, listen,” she says roughly. “You didn’t see that.” She’s poking you in the chest with her finger at this point. “Your boy here is a busy person who can’t always find the time to accommodate any old soul who comes wandering into her room.”

“But you invited m— “

“That was days ago!” she interrupts. “Helping a soul manifest down here in the Underworld takes time for someone with my capabilities. I’m not a god!” She looks around then back to you. “…Yet.”

“The Underworld?” You ask, flabbergasted.

“Oh, yes!” she answers. “Reaping doesn’t exactly pay the bills, so us reapers have to make a living down here in the Underworld.”

“Huh? There’s more than one Grim Reaper?” you ask.

“Nope!” she says, wagging her finger at you. “You’re thinking of Death-sensei. The be-all and end-all of oblivion. But he’s a busy personification, so he has us to do most of the soul reaping.” She sighs wistfully. “He has an entire dimension to himself. Your boy's a bit of a jealous bitch about that.”

“Oh… Alright, so what exactly do you do in your off time then?” You wonder. Your curiosity has been piqued now.

“I work,” she quickly responds. “It’s not really your business, homie. If I ain’t working, I’m working.”

Her paradox confuses you further. All you’ve ever known in life was lazing around and having fun. You couldn’t possibly imagine a life without that.

“Actually, I was just heading out,” she tells you as she dons her cape. “To, uh… Work.” She looks at you, hoping you believe her. “I’ll be back soon, so maybe grab a cold one—” She frowns. “Right. You aren’t able to drink anymore. Well, just hang out, I guess. But don’t go outside or you’ll be easy prey for the demons and monsters out there.”

By the door is a large hat rack, overflowing with various baseball caps. Each one branded with a different logo in a language you don’t recognize. One cap even has a pair of sporty-looking demon horns attached to it. _Very Underworld chic_ , you think.

As the reaper heads out the door for the 3rd time—as she had forgotten something the first two times—you watch through the faded window as she fumbles down the sidewalk. You hadn’t noticed initially but the foreign streets were perpetually dark—with red skies and black clouds blanketing the world outside. The only sources of light came from simple street lamps on every corner and tall, looming buildings with various demonic symbols and effigies that lined the landscape. They stretched out as far as the eye could see. The people walking the roads were also very strange. They were either very beautiful, very hideous or had features that made no logical sense.

There was no sign of wind whatsoever.

As you sat on the floor of the tiny apartment, your growing curiosity only grew worse. You really want to know what a reaper possibly does for a living. You chuckle to yourself, amused at your own joke. After a few minutes of fidgeting around and trying to hack into the woman’s computer, you decide to just risk it and follow her before she gets too far. You figure you’re dead already anyway, so what’s the worst that can happen?

Grabbing a random baseball cap off the hat rack and a random jacket you find lying around the room, you make your way to street level and try to remember which way you saw the woman go last.

The biting cold hits your face as you make it outside. A chill overtakes you as your body adjusts to the freezing temperature, a prodigious contrast to your proposed expectation that the underworld would have an exceedingly blazing climate.

You try your best to look inconspicuous, hoping the horned baseball cap you borrowed is helping you blend in with the local community. You overhear them whispering to themselves in a dark, mocking language that makes your head pound. You try to tune it out. From time to time, you think you see a human being cornered in some seedy alley by one of the locals, but you dismiss the notion. You try your best to hope you’re imagining things because if not, it would mean some poor, mortal fool must have taken a dangerously wrong turn in their life and ended up in a place like this. A sobering thought to say the least.

With the only help you can find coming in the form of the city lights, you shake away the urge to give up until finally your search comes to a halt when you briefly catch sight of a pink-haired woman in the distance. You see her stopped in front of a small building adorned with the same demonic flair as the adjoining architecture. A crass pun for its name gives you an idea of what goes on inside.

She looks around guardedly before entering.

You decide to wait a few minutes before you finally make your way to the front of the strange, infernal club. The sidewalk below the entrance is cracked and overgrown with a hellish-red weed you’ve never seen before. Loud, blaring music reverberates from the door and windows. Against your better judgment, you step inside.

Acrid cigar smoke permeates the air. The room was replete with an assortment of unsavory-looking characters. The back of the room was home to a large stage in which a few rough-and-tumble orcish types were currently getting booed off. You’ve entered a lion’s den and now you need to keep your head low or be eaten. You try to remember what drove you here.

The demonic MC takes the stage and makes an announcement, “Ladies and gentle-demons! Now, you all know how this normally works, but tonight we’re doing things a little differently.” He tips his cap down. A smirk on his face as he pauses for anticipation. “Why? Well, because we have a special guest with us tonight!” He takes a few steps back while the crowd shouts excitedly. “She’s the showstopping shinigami! She made Beleth her bitch! She’s the dope lady you’ll meet at the end of your rope, baby! Iiiiiiit’s CallioP Moriii!”

The lights go out while the stage lights up. Smoke rises from the ground and you begin to see dancing shadows flickering on stage before finally taking solid shape into a small silhouette of a woman. Calliope Mori has taken the stage.

“What a horrible night… TO DROP A VERSE!” She works up the audience with her words. They throw their loudest cheers at her. This is what she exists for: The adulation of a crowd who accepts her for what she wants to be. Her original purpose hadn’t served her; She simply wasn’t happy with where she had been in her unlife.

Every second of every minute of every day is spent in guiding dead souls to their afterlife.

Sure, it was rewarding in its own right, she thought. Even if they hate her for it. They’re all deathly afraid of her compassion. She is endlessly helping people move on, and while the thought alone helps her get through the day, it continuously pushes the other, middling thoughts of her own happiness to the back of her mind.

She is simply a psychopomp, she tells herself. Guiding souls to their final resting place is all she’s good for. Until eventually one night, after hundreds of years of laboring, she breaks down—the illusion shattered. She cries through the night on her cold, lonely bed—cries harder than she ever has before. And then a little later, she gets the idea to jot down her feelings on some parchment. Scribbling out word after word for hours because it’s the best way to get her feelings out. And further afterwards, she remembers the music that her reaper-mates showed off to her in reaper school. Music that helps humans get their feelings out. Music from the future—or the past—Because reapers exist beyond the boundaries of time and can listen to things from other eras with no problems at all. Yeah. It’s like that.

And so, she sneaks out into the endless, cursed night every now and again, during the strange times she finds herself free, to places where others like her sing their hearts out—Places where no one fears her for being who she is. She sings her feelings out and they listen intently to a voice dripping with resentment. A cry resounding with freedom. A sometimes boisterous, sometimes melancholic word, depending on how she’s feeling that day.

You watch as she begins to belt out those fiery, passionate words straight from whatever caliginous void fills the area that in most mortals would be the heart. The backing track to her music blasting out from the speakers surrounding her. She’s truly in her element, you think. Against your better judgment, you decide to strike up a conversation over the music with one of the more colorful-looking demons nearby.

“She’s got an amazing voice,” you note aloud.

The demon looks you over a bit before responding. “She’s unique, I’ll give you that. For someone usually so reviled, she sure has won the love of the people here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, most souls down here despise her for bringing them here in the first place.” He lets out a guffaw without taking his eyes off the singing reaper. “As for us demons, we tend not to give a shit. A reaper’s merely a means to an end of getting them down here and that leads directly into fun for us. We get a lot of our kicks messing with the pathetic souls being punished down here,” a smirk creeps along his face as he remembers a sordid deed he was recently apart of. “But most reapers tend to hate demons and that causes a lot of… tension between us.”

You try not to look surprised. “If reapers hate demons, why do they live down here in the first place?” you ask, confused. Calliope is three songs into her set.

He turns to you. “It’s not by choice—Not by any means. But that’s all I know on the subject. You try asking a reaper yourself, I doubt they’ll tell you,” the demon says as he scratches the underside of his pointed chin. “Most of them hardly leave their homes except to work. Try to talk to one? They just snub ya. Self-righteous bastards, the lot of them.” He frowns before letting out a chuckle. “Preeeetty ironic.” There’s a derisive inflection in his voice as he drags out the word.

“Ironic?”

“Yeah. Most people don’t know it but all reapers used to be demons at one point.”

A bombshell casually dropped into the conversation without warning. You look at him, awestruck. He’s probably the type of guy that’ll tell you any old bit of information he’s privy to just to show off his knowledge.

“Yep,” he continues, noticing your surprise. “Demons that are given the miraculous chance of being forgiven by God are chosen to be reapers. It’s way more restrictive, however, and because of that lack of freedom, most of us see it as a death sentence.” He scoffs, “Some apology.” His gaze returns to the show.

“So, reapers hate demons because it reminds them of better times?” you ask. You start to think you’re asking too many questions.

His eyes veer slowly back to you. “That’s right,” he says.

His expression worries you, so you decide to return to facing the stage. Despite the heaviness of the conversation, the reaper woman’s voice never really left the inside of your head. Her sultry voice invades your mind like an earworm on fire. You listen to the next couple of songs in a trance. You feel the earnestness coming off her soul and it enraptures you, making you feel close to her. Her voice has quickly become the most wonderful thing you have ever heard and you’re so distracted by the captivating reaper that you fail to notice the demon you had spoken to earlier was now nowhere to be seen.

Finally finishing her set, the reaper Calliope bids farewell to her demonic fanbase with a wave and a mocking tongue-out and a thundering “PEACE!” A certain human she thought she had spotted earlier was no longer anywhere to be seen among the boisterous crowd. There was a little twinge of embarrassment lingering in the back of her mind at the thought that maybe the mortal was so disappointed with her gauche singing, they had decided to dip out early. Especially when she, after noticing their presence, decided to go at the lyrics a bit more passionately.

On the other hand, there was a much more morbid possibility worrying her: That a wandering soul caught in the middle of a room full of demons and monsters could easily lead to a single, forgone conclusion.

A dull pain runs up your backside as you’re shoved against the solid wall of the outside of the club. A physiological response you’re not sure whether you’re imagining or not since you don’t have a normal body anymore.

“Thought you were gonna sneak by us that easily, huh?” The demon smiles, baring a grotesque set of sharp, yellowing teeth. The same ugly demon you were speaking with earlier, along with a couple of brawny, heavy-horned cohorts, had nabbed you while the lights in the club were flashing and taken you to a nearby narrow alley that stank of urine. “Can’t believe I almost let this prime cut of meat get away,” he says, licking what appears to be his lips. “Guess Lady Luck is my bitch tonight.”

Fear gradually overwhelms you as you try to gather your shaky thoughts. In the decaying light of the club, you didn’t realize just how unnerving this demon’s appearance actually is. His meaty face is covered in holes, some of which are dripping with a viscous pus. While the rest are home to various wriggling, bloodshot eyes that never seems to focus exactly on one spot.

Two stone-faced demons, both a bit of an imposing height, accompanied him. They lurch over and collect your slumped body from the wall, pulling and locking your arms in place so you can no longer escape. Their dead eyes simply stare mercilessly forward, awaiting their next instruction from their boss. In the dark fog of the alley, you can see their obscenely long horns, in varying, curving styles, jutting out from their heads. You imagine they’re no different from bucks in regards to how they are used. Your prospects do not bode well.

“Do you know what we do with lost souls that happen to find their way down here, meat?” He says, slowly drawing a serrated knife from beneath his shirt. The glint of the blade reflecting one of the street lamps made it seem as if it were trying to emphasize the danger of the situation.

You shake your head.

“Most demons are pretty learned in various forms of torture to use on the punished humans that get sent here. There’s an exquisite ecstasy we get when we cut into the flesh of man that just gets you higher than any other shit you can find in the Underworld.” He’s pacing in front of you, poking his finger into the tip of his blade. “I guess whoever instated the system down here made damn sure that the misery we drew from humans kept us motivated enough to keep going for thousands of years.”

He pokes the knife tip into your chest. You don’t bleed, but the searing pain you feel from just that small sting is worse than anything you’ve felt tonight. The blades of the Underworld must be especially made for this kind of thing.

“But we can’t all get a steady fix. And as a consequence, you’ll sometimes get the oft gang from some backwater district going to war over this shit!” He yells before twisting the blade slowly.

All you can manage out is a wince and a gasp. Unbearable pain shoots past your chest and spreads quickly throughout your body. If you weren’t being held up, your buckling knees would have already caused you to collapse.

“Or one of us will simply get lucky and have a wandering soul fall right into their lap.” He smiles at you and without missing a beat, he pulls the blade away. He waves it mockingly in front of your face. This bastard clearly likes to hear himself talk. “Some make a sport of it—You know, I hear there’s an underground arena where they make your kind fight each other for hours. I mean, it’s not like you can exactly kill yourselves in the ring,” he says while chuckling. His various eyes widen and blink asynchronously. “If we’re desperate enough, there _is_ always the option of tricking a soul out of a living body. I’m sure you’ve heard talk of how demons make dealings with you mortals and all that.” His eyes narrow all at once. “And the craftier, more powerful demons are known to actually take a soul by force. They can bind your soul to them and never let ya go. A constant supply of misery, straight from the tap.”

Your head feels dizzy from the burning pain; your eyes are watering and you can barely distinguish the demon’s face anymore. The stabbing sensation barely subsided after he pulled the blade away. You desperately want to clutch at your wound but your arms remain hoisted in place. You begin to realize that you truly are in Hell.

You lift your head, trying to look in his direction and attempt to scowl at him. For the first time in a long time, you feel the enmity building within you.

The demon flashes you a devilish smile. “You humans get tricked into sinning every day, whether conscious of it or not. Then, when you get dumped down here, all you can stammer out is either a venomous remark or a plea for forgiveness. Ironic, since that only serves to make us want to hurt you more,” as the words leave his lips, a fist drives itself into your gut.

A dull grunt escapes your mouth. The pain is nothing compared to the anguish you felt from the knife, so, not surprisingly, you find yourself able to bear with it.

“And how did you end up down here, meat?” he prods you. “It must’ve been something real nasty. I doubt you killed yourself just to see a CallioP show.”

You give out a pained sigh. You think back—to the life you led—back when you were still alive. Or at least a semblance of what most would consider being alive. You had one too many regrets to count and not enough excuses. You think you would’ve ended up down here anyway after the slothful nature of your life came to light. You remember the look of sympathy in Calliope’s eyes back when you two first met—A flicker that you now only notice upon recollection—and wonder just how much it must hurt her to see the final moments of each soul she takes into her care. She probably sees it the moment she looks at you. The way you died, the life you led, how you ended up from point A to point B. She tries to hide it under her cool façade but you could feel the sorrow in her words tonight when she was up on that stage. The weight of all those thousands, perhaps millions, of souls she meets every day and every night mixing into her own emotions and coming out into song. What did she see in you, you ask yourself? Enough so to take you in instead of abandoning you? Why tonight? Was this just a formality she offered to all fresh souls who rejected her? Or was she just feeling especially generous tonight and you happened to be that one lucky soul to take advantage of it?

In the end, you find yourself at a loss for words to the demon’s inquiry.

“Don’t wanna spill, huh? S’Alright,” he remarks. “We’re gonna have plenty of time together. You’ll open up to me eventually. In the meantime, I’m gonna enjoy whetting my blade against your bones.” The demon tightens his grip on the knife and prepares to plunge it deep into your core.

You shut your eyes tight, trying to prepare yourself for the inevitable impact of pain that was coming.

A sound of something sharp cutting through the air reaches your ears. There is no pain. You open your eyes and see the demon, still gripping his knife firmly, with an expression of horror on his face. A strand of blood dribbles from his mouth before you notice a giant curved blade sticking out from his abdomen.

Your body finally slithers onto the floor. The two remaining demons that had been restraining you have changed their focus to the current threat that was their leader’s apparent attacker. Your vision is shaky and all you can identify is a looming figure clad in black.

Calliope swung back her scythe, dislodging the sharp blade from the gaping wound she had left in the trickster demon she had just slew. Blood and bile splattered heavily onto the dark alley floor. Demons usually had a nasty habit of regenerating from most wounds but her weapon is meant to erase things rather permanently if need be. The reason for that was never made clear to her, but at the moment she wasn’t complaining. Her instincts had told her she was better off making sure the little soul hadn’t run into any trouble on, what would have hopefully been, their way back. In the span of only a day, she had grown quickly attached to this wayward soul. Maybe because they gave enough of a care to actually want to find out more about her, even when she had advised against it. It was a fairly shallow reason to grow fond of someone, but it’s a strange time in her life right now where lately she’s been gradually becoming more aware of her own feelings.

Calliope twirled her scythe and took a relatively wide stance. Her new companion wasn’t “out of the forest yet” or however that mortal expression went. She still had the two remaining lesser Botis demons, as they were called, to deal with. She recognized the behemoths, along with their now-fallen boss, as regulars of the club. She knew they weren’t exactly big fans of hers and usually hung around there only to cause trouble for others—especially during her shows—which often caused a wrinkle in her brow. She wasn’t too afraid of them, however. Although they were quite bigger than her, reapers still had unusual reserves of strength to draw from.

They each lunge at her from both sides, hoping to crush her in a sort of pincer attack. A fierce, circular swing is all they see before they find both of their heads slogging against the black pavement, their bodies dropping like huge slabs of rotten meat.

You wake up in a familiar room. You sit up on the small bed, sheets tarnished with the faded, lingering stains of the past. The familiar sight of gleaming weapons adorning the wall snaps you back to reality. You had somehow returned to Calliope’s apartment home. You look around the cramped room and see the young reaper, a pair of black-rimmed glasses adorning her face, sitting on her couch, writing something down in a raggedy-looking notebook. A souvenir, perhaps, of one of the many countless times she’s stopped by the human world.

“You’re awake,” she says, her eyes remaining glued to her musings.

“Was I asleep?” you ask. “I didn’t think souls were capable of that.”

Calliope says nothing, staring at a blank sheet of paper before finally placing her glasses down and looking at you. “Lots of things are possible for an immortal soul.” She lets out a sigh. “But it looks like when you were struck by a blade forged in Hell, it made your body more malleable to the malignant energies coursing around down here.”

“I can’t imagine that as anything but bad.”

“Well, for one, you won’t be able to leave this place without anything short of a miracle. On the bright side, at least your body’s going to feel a lot more like it used to back when you were alive. ‘Cept all the pain you’ll feel will enhance itself a hundredfold.” She lets out a distressed-sounding chuckle.

You clutch at your chest, to the area where you had been stabbed. There was no wound, but a dull pain remained as a grim reminder of your demonic encounter.

“And judging by tonight’s events, it seems I can’t even leave you alone to take care of yourself.”

You apologize. Showing weakness had always been anathema to your nature, but in this moment, you were like a lost puppy who had no place to call home.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells you. “Damn demons are always trying to find a way to hassle me one way or another. Sometimes I’ll even find them tiny bitches biting at my network cables.”

“They won’t ban you from the club for this, will they? Seemed like you enjoy it there.”

Calliope lets out a loud chortle. “Of course not. If anything, I’ll have gained even more fans. It’s all about street cred down here, homie. So, thanks for that, I guess.”

You try your best to smile but end up hanging your head low. Your situation is looking dire and you’re adverse to continue imposing on Calliope’s generosity. Assuming she would even let you.

The room is silent for a while. You fail to notice that the reaper has been looking at you this entire time, lost in thought.

“Yo, I have an idea,” she says finally, walking over to you. “Might sound crazy but I can try, uh… binding your soul to mine using a very old spell. I don’t exactly remember where I learned it, it’s just something I picked up _back in ze day_. It should halt the process—shit, it should reverse it completely.”

Your eyes light up. “I couldn’t possibly—”

“It’s okay,” she kindly reassures you. “Gets pretty lonely around here sometimes—” she begins stammering. “Not that I don’t value my alone time. I work best when I’m alone, so don’t expect to actually see me around too much.” She glares at you, her voice deepening, “Like, seriously man. Don’t get it twisted. I can say I’m lonely and still enjoy being alone! I do also still value my jobs so I’ll barely spend much time at home anyway. And remind me to make you some sort of human house. I’m a bit excited now, it’s my first time having a pet,” she says, chuckling.

“Are you sure?” You want to make certain. “I doubt I could contribute much. I’ve always been a bit of a deadbeat.”

She giggles. “Well, that’s a cute name.” She places her hand on your shoulder. “Of course I’m sure. Now. Are. You. Ready?!”

You nod. The hand gripping your shoulder tightens. There’s a slight pain, not due to any fault on Calliope’s part, but more to do with the side-effect of your new budding form.

The reaper distorts her lips in strange shapes in rapid succession. You realize she’s chanting something in a voice that’s beyond the register of your hearing. Your body begins to feel warm—the pain in your chest now non-existent. You begin to contemplate what it was that drew you so inexplicably close to Calliope Mori in the first place. Despite being some all-powerful being, to you, she seems no different from a regular person. You weren’t sure what to expect when you first met her. Normally, meeting Death would scare anyone more than anything, especially with the way she was throwing those flames and bars at you. But it didn’t take you long to realize that there was a comforting side to her. Letting you stay with her, saving your life and then saving it again. You think you understand why they call it the “sweet embrace of Death.” She has a cool passion that you began to feel when you first saw her on that stage. Yet there’s also a relatable dorkiness to her that you also saw when you stepped into her house. A multifaceted persona that seems to lie deep within. It all gives you a complicated idea of what drives her but there’s more to it that you can’t help but want to dig deeper for. But even if it’s complicated, you can’t help but want to look inside. It's definitely a unique opportunity. She feels like someone who is just like you, yet unparalleled in her own way. Someone who you really want to be like. She’s kismet.

Was this spell making you more receptive to your inner thoughts? Her inner thoughts? The guard you keep around your emotions must be weakening since you’re beginning to connect your soul to her…

She lets go of your shoulder. There’s a newfound heat deep inside you. You look down at your hands, hands that are a lot bonier than you remember. It seems your appearance has changed.

“Looks like connecting to me also changed you to fit more with my _style_ ,” she coolly adjusts the collar of her cape and winks.

You look at her and she smiles. It feels like you’ve known her for years, yet your friendship has only just begun.

“Well?” Calliope asks you warmly. “What shall we do today, **Dead Beat**?”


End file.
